


Baby's First Prophecy

by ChasingRabbits



Series: A Couple of Kooks [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1650845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasingRabbits/pseuds/ChasingRabbits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Emma starts talking, she proves to know a little more than she lets on. </p><p>Alternately: Studies show that 100% of Dean Winchesters and Castiel Novaks react unfavorably to presumptuous infants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby's First Prophecy

It’s July again. 

While it’s not even the hottest it’s going to get this summer, the temperatures have started climbing at an alarming rate. Castiel is in nothing but a t-shirt and boxers, neck deep in this article, legs kicked up on the couch, fingers flying, and brows crunched.

Then he hears it.

“Puh-see.”

His head prairie dogs, because he’s sure he’s hearing things—

“Puh-see.”

Castiel looks over at where Emma sits on her blanket, blocks long forgotten. She reaches out for Archie and repeats, “Puh-see.”

Holy shit.

“Puppy?” Castiel enunciates back to her and she lets out a squeal of delight. 

“Puh-see!” she exclaims again.

“Honey,” Castiel sets his computer aside and gets on the floor with her. “You like the  _puppy_?” He hits the second p sound hard, and she grins back at him.

“Puh-tee.”

“Better,” he nods, and then makes a popping noise with his lips.

She mimics him.

“Puppy?”

“Putsy.” Emma nods.

Castiel’s phone rings on the coffee table, and he has to remove himself from this monumental moment in this child’s life. It’s Dean, calling from work.

“Dean,” he answers.

“S’up,” Dean fights a yawn on the other end. “How’s everything?”

“Well,” Castiel sits back on the floor. “Apart from your child’s first word being ‘pussy’, it’s shaping up to be a rather mediocre day.”

“Wait,  _what_?” Dean snaps to attention.

“Apparently she is her father’s daughter,” Castiel watches as Emma pulls herself up and tries to climb on Archie. “You Winchesters, only one thing on your minds from womb to tomb.”

“She said her first word?” Dean asks, voice now soft. Then, registering the rest of the information, “Wait, her first word was ‘ _pussy’_?”

“To be fair,” Castiel stands and picks her up, “she was grabbing at Archie when she said it, so I’m sure she was trying to say ‘puppy’, but that is absolutely not what came out of her mouth the first couple of times. Wanna say it for papa again? What’s that guy over there?”

He puts the phone on speaker.

“Putsy!” Emma exclaims.

“She’s very proud, as you can tell,” says Castiel.

“Shit,” Dean sighs. “I can’t fuckin’ believe I missed that.”

“Dean, you’re working three jobs, what is there not to believe about that?”

“Wow, no need to be a dick,” Dean comes back. “I just missed my kid’s milestone, I’m a little fuckin’ upset here, Cas.”

Cas sighs and sets Emma back down. “I know,” he says. “But Dean, I’ve already told you that you don’t have to be working this much. Look, the record store only gives you eighteen hours a week. If you cut that out, you’ll still be making plenty.”

“I’m not talking about this right now,” says Dean. “I’m covered in engine grease, I’m hot and I’m sticky…”

He sniffs on the other end of the phone.

“You sound very cranky,” Castiel observes.

“Yeah, I wonder why,” Dean grumbles.

“Dean, if you’re going to gripe at me for your entire break, I’d rather hang up and have you just pretend I’m still here.”

“Fuck it, I’ll be home later.”

“Be safe,” Castiel warns. Dean lets out a final grunt before he hangs up, and Castiel sighs. Emma is back to her blocks, stacking them as high as they can go until they fall over.

Concentration broken, Cas decides to sit and join her.

“Emma, your dad is an interesting man,” he says, and picks up a block. “May I join you?”

“Da,” Emma replies.

“I know that he means well,” Castiel explains, starting to arrange his blocks just so. “But he is of the mind that he has to be doing something at every moment of every day, otherwise he’s not doing enough. He feels like he has to take care of everyone… truth be told, that’s one of the things I’ve always admired about him. He has so much capacity for love.”

He knows Emma doesn’t understand what he’s saying, but it’s a lot like talk therapy. Castiel feels better after speaking his feelings, and Emma gets to hear someone talk in something that’s not that infernal baby voice. Eleven months is the beginning of a very crucial stage in speech development and he doesn’t need anyone infantilizing her.

Even though she is, in fact, an infant.

“I love your dad,” he says then, “More than I probably should… so much more than I ever wanted to. And your dad loves you, and me. And once you understand the social constructs of love and family, you’ll love him too.”

Emma’s tower topples and she claps her hands together. Her hair is starting to grow now, curling and swirling in soft honey blonde tendrils; her eyes are neither green like Dean’s, nor blue like Lydia’s, but an earthy hazel all her own. Castiel scoops her against his side and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m lucky, in a way,” he says. “Because now I get to spend all this time with you. But , frankly, it sucks that papa has to miss everything because he’s a stubborn ass.”

Emma looks up at him with curiosity puzzling her features and Castiel admits, “I suppose stubborn ass is a little redundant, you’re right.”

Emma grunts and pushes herself up, using Castiel’s thigh for leverage. And then she climbs up onto him and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Or, the baby equivalent, anyway, which is just her pressing her face against his and making a smacking sound with her lips.  

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Castiel wraps an arm around her and kisses her back, right on her chubby little cheek.

She giggles when he blows a raspberry and wriggles away so fast that she falls back on her butt.

Rather than cry, she looks at Castiel and laughs.

“That’s my girl,” he rolls to his feet and puts his hands on his hips. “What do you think: is it too hot to go to the grocery store?”

Emma is not invested in the conversation, but has turned her attention back to her blocks. Naturally, this stirs up something of a scene when Castiel takes her back to Dean’s room to get her dressed.

“I know,” says Cas as he pulls a little green-and-white checked dress on over her head. He fastens a pair of little white sandals onto her feet too. Castiel dresses too, grabs his wallet and the diaper bag and heads out the door. They’ll only be gone for a few minutes, but one can never be too conscientious.

The grocery store is riddled with the usual Wednesday afternoon set: the elderly, the housewives, the Castiels and the Emmas. Castiel picks up a few things for dinner, as well as some other supplies they’ve been running low on. He stops by the bakery and grabs a cherry pie, too, just for good measure. Needless though it is, Dean does work very hard, and a little slice of pie to kick off his work lull (not break, but  _lull_ ) will make him happy.

On Wednesdays, Dean works at the garage until five-thirty. Of course, before the garage, he works the graveyard security shift at the mall until seven in the morning. Wednesdays and Thursdays are his nights off.

Usually, Wednesday nights are as follows: Dean arrives home around six o’clock, he plays with Emma for about fifteen minutes before he passes out on the floor and Castiel has to move him back into bed. He’ll sleep until about midnight and snort himself awake, patting around for Emma only to find out she’s already asleep.

That’s when he’ll park in Castiel’s room with him, or on the couch beside him, and let himself unwind, if only slightly.

Sometimes he falls back asleep on Castiel’s shoulder, or his lap, and Castiel will fall asleep too, content in knowing that Dean is, for now, safe and well.

Wednesday nights do not usually involve Dean bursting through the door and hollering, “Where’s my baby at?”

Emma looks up from her spot in her high chair and starts banging on the tray in front of her, smiling. She hasn’t eaten yet, but Castiel isn’t worried about that. Right now, Dean needs to scoop Emma up into his arms and give her a great big hug.

“So, Cas tells me you’re a little Chatty Cathy now, huh?”

Emma’s only response is to wrap her pudgy arms around Dean’s neck and smile against him.

“Her next show’s at seven,” Castiel jests back softly. Dean looks at him and, thankfully, smiles right back.

“All right Emma, say it with me,” he says to her. “Say, ‘what’s cookin’ good lookin’’.”

“You should know by now that I’m immune to flattery, Dean,” Castiel replies, though he can’t keep the smile off of his face.  

Dean and Emma have the exact same smile, and it’s an absolute joy to see them side by side. That all-too familiar ache grows in Castiel’s chest, and he clears his throat.

“I was going to make some cheeseburgers,” says Cas. “Are you hungry now?”

The gesture isn’t lost on Dean. It’s hard to apologize with words sometimes, so Castiel has taken to doing nice things for Dean, like picking up pie for dessert or making cheeseburgers in their George Foreman grill. It’s not much, but it’s what Castiel can do.

“Yeah, man,” Dean smiles. “That sounds really fuckin’ awesome actually. Thank you.”

“I’m just surprised you’re still awake,” Castiel folds his arms over his chest.

“Ah, yeah,” Dean chuckles. “I may have chugged a Red Bull on the way home.”

And like that, Castiel’s face falls, “ _Dean_.”

“What?” Dean holds Emma closer to him. “Cas, I’m tired of missing everything my kid does.”

“You were here when she started walking,” Cas supplies.

“I missed her first word, dude,” Dean says. “I’ve missed enough.”

“Well, you know the solution to that, right?” Castiel raises his eyebrows, and Dean rolls his eyes and then looks down at Emma. “Did you see the puppy earlier?”

Emma nods, and says, “Putty.”

“Puppy?” Dean too emphasizes the second ‘p’ sound.

This then descends into Dean repeating the syllable “ _pee-pee-pee”_  over and over again until Cas says, “If you need to go so bad, I’ll take her.”

Dean flips him off, and he chuckles.

Emma starts mimicking Dean, now also chanting  _“pee-pee-pee”_.

“There it is,” Dean grins and blows a raspberry to her cheek.

Emma giggles, and that makes Dean laugh too, and Castiel’s chest squeezes as he watches. It’s moments like this when he realizes what Dean means by family. Neither of them came from nuclear families, or had what movies and TV dictate as “normal” upbringings.  

Dean’s parents died in a car crash when he was ten, and Sam was only six. He and Sam spent a year in the system, and while it’s by no means the worst, it’s absolutely nothing to envy. Castiel’s family is an intricate patchwork of his mother’s own making, one woman’s goal to find a man to support her, stitched together by the bloodlines that live on through her children.

This, right here with Dean and Emma, is what people mean when they talk about family.

And Castiel gets to be a part of it.

* * *

Dean begins his Thursday passed out face down on Cas’ bed. He almost feels a little bad for booting Archie out of his spot, but last night was one of those nights when he just needed to be with someone. As soon as Emma went down for the night, he’d wandered into Cas’ room and curled up on his bed.

There’s something that’s so inherently comforting about Cas’ presence. Even when they were kids, when Cas had first come to Dean’s aid as one strange kid to another, Dean had felt a calm wash over him as soon as Castiel spoke his name.

Cas is magnetic, so it makes sense that, yeah, Dean’s always been attracted to him, because that’s the nature of the whole concept.

With a groggy turn of his head, Dean turns his head and sees Cas curled up beside him.  He smiles.

Not many guys would let their best friend park it in their bed for the whole night and fall asleep right up against them. Cas isn’t like most guys, isn’t like most people, but Dean supposes that that’s why he likes Cas as much as he does, because he’s not like most people either.

“Hey, heads up,” Dean pats Cas on the side and climbs over him. Cas groans and lets Dean climb over the top of him.

Emma is still asleep when he goes to her crib. He never gets up early enough to do the morning stuff with her. Gently, he reaches into the crib and rouses her.

“Hey, baby,” he hoists her up and holds her against his chest. “Daddy’s gonna hang with you this morning, huh? Let uncle Cas rest for a change.”

Emma lets out a sleepy noise and buries her face in Dean’s neck, shielding her eyes from the morning light. He changes her diaper, though leaves her in her jammies, and then totes her out to the kitchen and plops her down in her high chair.

Today, Dean doesn’t work until ten, which means they get to have a lazy morning.

Just as well, ‘cause this is exactly what he needs right now.

“Whaddya think,” he grabs a box of Cheerios off of the counter. “You want some cereal while you wait?”

Emma claps her hands together and makes a reach for them. Dean chuckles and pours a small amount into a baby-sized bowl, setting it in front of Emma before he goes to make her some oatmeal.

In the time it takes to get her breakfast ready, Emma has thrown most of her cereal over the surface of her high chair.

“Damn, kid,” Dean whistles as he sits down, a baby spoon in hand. “You know how to make a mess, don’t you.”

The next portion of the morning goes smoothly. Emma is a compliant eater with a big appetite.

Good to know she got something worth having from her old man.

“Man, I can’t wait until I get to feed you real food,” Dean says, spooning some more oatmeal into Emma’s mouth. “And yeah, I know this is real food, but you wait. You’ll never go back to this shit once you’ve had pie.”

Dean frowns then, “Would you even like pie?”

Emma stares back at him with her big hazel eyes and Dean shakes his head, “Never mind. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Another spoonful and Dean adds, in a whisper, “I’ll still love you if you like cake more.”

Dean crosses his eyes then, and Emma busts up into a fit of giggles.

“Everyone sounds awfully chipper this morning,” comes Cas’ gravelly, sleepy observation.

“Maybe we’re all in a good mood, right?” he asks Emma.

Emma looks about as excited to see Cas as she was to see Dean this morning. She bounces in her seat and waves her arms.

“Papa!”

Cas stops mid-stride just as Dean’s stomach bottoms out.

“What?” Cas asks.

“Papa, papa!” Emma exclaims again.

“Oh,” Cas hangs his head, like that was exactly what he was afraid of. 

Emma reaches for Cas, but Cas stands there like a deer in the headlights. Dean looks over at him, his heart slamming so hard that his ribs might crack.

“Well, she obviously wants you,” Dean takes the bowl of oatmeal residue to the sink and leaves it to soak. “I gotta shower.”

He doesn’t mean to slam the door behind him, but that’s exactly what he does. He holes himself up in the bathroom and rubs his face with his hands.

He’s so fucking absent that Emma thinks Cas is her dad.

Fucking great.

It must sting a lot more than he first thought, because soon a couple of big fat tears roll down his cheeks and land on his t-shirt. He doesn’t bother to wipe them away; no one can see him in here.

“Dean?” Cas knocks softly on the door.

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Cas,” Dean replies.

“I don’t either,” says Cas. “I just came to inform you that I’m going for a run, and your daughter would very much like to play with you before work.”

“Well, she doesn’t even think she’s my kid, so—“

“Dean,” Cas’ forehead thuds against the door. “Will you just come out and play with your child? Don’t take it out on her.”

More tears roll down Dean’s cheeks. He says nothing, just wipes his face and comes back out into the living room. Emma’s confusion is apparent, and hey, why wouldn’t it be? Cas and Dean nearly crapped themselves out of excitement when she mispronounced ‘puppy’, why aren’t they throwing a parade for ‘papa’?

Dean lifts her up and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll be back,” says Cas, tucking his headphones into his ears.  Dean nods. He decides to set them up in front of the TV with some blocks and a couple stuffed animals. They don’t have a lot in the way of toys yet, which kind of bums Dean out. He didn’t have a whole lot when he was little either; the least he could do is throw the poor kid a bone.

Emma is content, though.

She even picks up a block and slobbers all over it, just to prove how content she is.

As it edges closer to time for Dean to go to work, Cas still hasn’t returned. Emma has moved on to playing with Archie—or, rather, she tries to play with him and he tries to sleep.

“Let’s see where uncle Cas is,” Dean pushes himself up and grabs his phone from his room. A text, _‘I’m staying with Crowley tonight.’_

_‘wtf i have work asshole’_

_‘I know.’_

_‘… you know? whos supposed to watch emma’_

_‘Sounds like you’re a little under the weather. You should stay home.’_

“What the,” Dean dials Cas, but it goes straight to voicemail. “Oh, you _dick_.”

Thankfully, he’s on good terms with his manager at the record store. Andy tells him not to worry about it, and though Dean isn’t really into the fact that his manager is the same age as his kid brother, Dean thanks him all the same.

Dean sits back down on the floor and lets out a sigh. He couldn’t be any worse of a dad if he tried. Dad worked like a dog too, often had to call mom and tell her he’d be late _again_. Dean spent the first three years of his life seeing his dad only on the weekends, and on the very few occasions he was up late enough to see him come home.

But it’s all so he can provide for her. He doesn’t have a degree like Cas, and for whatever reason, he’s got a big red _Fuck Me_ written on his forehead. He’s got skills, okay, and yeah maybe he can’t afford a Porsche, but he can sure as shit fix one. He can patrol an empty mall and throw the fuck down if he needs to.

He can do all this shit that all those assholes with their fancy degrees don’t want to do, or can’t do, or think it’s _below them_ to do, and he makes peanuts for it. So he has to work two, three jobs to make ends meet and now he can’t even father his own child.

“Goddamn it,” Dean wipes his face again.

This catches Emma’s attention. She comes back up to him and crawls into his lap.

She curls against him and nuzzles into his stomach.  

“Thanks, baby,” he hums.

She might think Cas is her dad, but at least she still likes him.

* * *

It still rattles around in his skull, like some garish nightmare.

_Papa_.

As if they didn’t have enough to worry about, now Emma is confused about her parentage. Except, Emma is a baby and she doesn’t understand social complexities yet. She’s learning, but as of now she doesn’t know what a dad is, or a puppy; she just knows that Archie is a puppy, and apparently Cas is a papa.

“Well, how do you like that,” says Crowley over his cup of coffee, “A step-father, at my age.”

“This is serious, Crowley,” Castiel frowns.

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Crowley waves it off. “I skived off to come collect you from that ruddy hovel you call a flat.”

Okay, so maybe Castiel had lied about going for a run, but he couldn’t stay in the apartment. Not today.

Embarrassed isn’t the right word…

He’s mortified.

“You don’t understand,” Castiel begins.

“Yes, it’s best you start with that qualifier,” Crowley nods. “That’s certainly never come back ‘round to bite you in the ass.”

“Dean is very… sensitive,” Castiel attempts to explain.

“Unsurprising.”

“He’s her father,” says Castiel. “He’s the one who’s running himself into the ground, working three jobs to make sure he can pay his bills and pay me back for everything I’ve done for Emma, even though I’ve told him he doesn’t have to. I just… watch her.”

“Make sure she has food, a roof over her head, make sure she knows she’s—and I’m only going to say this once—you make sure she knows she’s loved,” Crowley looks as though the last has left a bad taste in his mouth. “Castiel, that’s being a father. Or, so I’m told.”

Castiel sighs and rests his forehead against the counter.

How is it that every person he knows, himself included, either has a horrible relationship with their father, a dead father, or never even knew their father at all?

Castiel doesn’t know that he’s a father. He wants to make Dean’s life a little easier by helping out where and when he can. He wants to make sure Emma has everything she needs, wants her to know that she’s loved above all else.

“Shit,” he concludes.

“And there it is,” Crowley nods. “Well done, Castiel. Epiphany reached in record time.”

He checks his watch, “Now, it’s ten o’clock. I can get to the office just in time to get some work done. May I drop you anywhere, or will you be lazing about with Juliet all day?”

Castiel looks over to where Juliet, the sleek Doberman pinscher, lies lazily in her cushy doggie bed.

“Perhaps I should go to the office,” he says. “Though I don’t have my laptop on me.”

“Yes, but you’ve got your handy little drive, haven’t you?”

Crowley indicates his keys where they rest on the counter and Castiel sighs.

“Would you mind taking me to my office?” he asks.

“Not any more or less than I’d mind you sitting here, ducks,” Crowley replies. He leans over the counter and presses a quick kiss to the corner of Castiel’s mouth. Not exactly something he’d expect from Crowley, but Castiel sort of needed that right now, so he takes it in stride.

Castiel’s office isn’t too far from Crowley’s, just a couple blocks west. It was nice when Castiel was in house more, instead of remote—he could just walk over to Crowley’s office whenever he wanted, or needed, to escape. Even if he didn’t want to grab lunch, or, more often, dinner, he would almost never say no to a quickie before either of them had to go back to work.

There’s something about being fucked over the side of a desk that makes Castiel’s blood all hot and fiery.

 _Girl Power Magazine_ takes up the entire seventh floor of their building. Originally intended to be a sugary, bubblegum magazine for teenage girls, they soon found their voice in a more practical approach to the wants and needs of adolescents on the brink of young adulthood.

It’s what drew Castiel to the job in the first place.

“Well, if it isn’t Castiel,” Naomi greets him as he shuts her office door behind him. He takes a seat in the cushy chair in front of her desk and kicks up his feet on the other. “I see fatherhood has taken its toll.”

“Always nice to see you, Naomi,” Castiel comes back. “I’ve got the day off from babysitting duties, I wanted to come in and check on everything.”

“You haven’t been in for almost a month, Castiel,” Naomi finally looks up from her computer.

“I know that,” Castiel nods. “And believe me, I’m working on a new arrangement with Dean.”

“Your obsession with that man is endearing at best,” she remarks, “And at its worst grotesquely pathetic.”

“Thank you, Naomi,” Castiel nods. “I’m glad I decided to come in.”

“Don’t play the snark card, Castiel,” Naomi lowers her reading glasses. “It’s very unbecoming.”

She frowns.

“Nice t-shirt.”

Castiel looks down. He keeps a stash of emergency clothes at Crowley’s place, nothing that he would miss from his wardrobe. This, however, happens to be Dean’s shirt, emblazoned across the front with “Little Lebowski Urban Achiever” and a shooting star.

“It’s laundry day,” he explains.

“I’m sure,” Naomi nods. “Off you go. Some of us actually work for a living.”

Castiel nods and decides that any retort is better left unsaid. He pushes himself to his feet and ventures back out into the bullpen. Above the canopy of cubicles, Castiel can see the wiry mane of Cassie Robinson, junior editor.

She spots Castiel, and immediately he takes off in the other direction.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Cassie, she’s actually a wonderful journalist, and witty as hell, but she’s also an ex-flame of Dean’s. There’s just no comfortable way to interact with a coworker after you’ve walked in on them getting drilled into the arm of your couch.

“Castiel,” she catches up with him—and in heels, how the hell did she do that? She pulls a stack of papers out of a manila file folder and hands them to him.

“Submissions for the short story contest,” she says. “Read them and get your recommendations back to me as soon as possible… Nice shirt.”

“Thank you,” he says and accepts the stack of stories. “It’s actually not mine.”

“I know,” Cassie nods. “Like I’d forget something that ridiculous. As soon as you’re done with those, I have another stack on my desk.”

Castiel nods and silently wills his headache into submission.

It does not work.

He takes a seat at his cubicle and lets out a heavy sigh. There’s a picture of him and Dean taped to the corner of his monitor, and another of Dean and Emma that he, god help him, actually printed out and tacked up onto the wall in front of him.

“Cas?”

A mop of mermaid red hair pops into his field of vision, and he looks up. Charlie Bradbury works in the cubicle directly beside his. She oversees the operation of their online magazine, not editing content so much as making sure the website is functional.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!” she exclaims. “How’s Emma?”

“She’s doing well,” Castiel nods. “Finally sleeping through the night soundly.”

“Good news for you,” she says. “Hey, I’m gonna go to lunch in a little bit. You wanna go to Johnny Rockets?”

He perks up.

A burger the size of his face actually doesn’t sound too bad right now. The ones he made last night were okay, but as is the nature of the George Foreman grill, it does away with all of the fat that makes burgers delicious.

“Yes,” he decides. “That would be good.”

Being at work is good for him. It sucks being cooped up in the apartment all day, even if it means he gets to spend all that time with Emma. He blows through the work Cassie gives him, picking apart everything, fingers, marking up every page in dark blue ink (not red, as he finds that much red unsettling).

It’s good for him to be around people who aren’t Dean, or Meg or Crowley. He, Charlie, and Dorothy all go out for lunch, and when he returns he has a whole new pile of work to tackle.

Dark falls before Crowley texts, “ _Finally leaving the office. Do you need a ride?”_

Castiel looks at the time display on his screen.

Quarter ‘til eight.

_“Yes, please. I want to go back to my apartment, though.”_

_“As you wish.”_

Castiel quickly finishes up an email to Cassie before he shuts down his computer and shoulders the canvas bag he borrowed from Charlie. There is a glut of _Dear Abby_ letters that he needs to sift through and respond to that will at least make for some interesting reading when he’s back at home with Emma.

He knocks on Naomi’s doorjamb.

“Still here, Castiel?” she asks.

“What can I say?” Cas shrugs. “I’m dedicated to the cause.”

“Mmhmm,” is her only response. “Make sure to come in before the Christmas party.”

Castiel nods, “Good night, Naomi,” and leaves the office.

Crowley is in a sour mood.

Castiel doesn’t want to presume that it has anything to do with him, so he asks, “Is everything all right?”

“Hunky dory,” Crowley returns coolly, and it sets Castiel on edge. Say what you will about the (sometimes explosively) emotive Winchesters, but at least they let out what they’re feeling in _some_ way. Crowley just shoves it down and lets it stew.

Part of him wonders if it’s a cultural thing, but then he remembers that Crowley once got into a screaming, stomping, beating bar fight back when he was doing his undergrad work in Sioux Falls. He’s not above losing control, he’s just needs to have it ninety-nine percent of the time.

When they pull up outside Cas and Dean’s apartment, Castiel unbuckles his seatbelt but doesn’t move to exit the vehicle.

“It’s a door, Castiel,” says Crowley, “I know the mechanics and the form of the thing have changed, but the function has not.”

Castiel leans over the median between them and kisses his jaw. Crowley heaves a sigh, like he’s never had an imposition weigh so heavily on him before.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” he asks.

Castiel replies by turning his head and wrapping him up in a long, tender kiss.

Because he loves Crowley. He has ever since he was seventeen. He may not be _in_ love with him anymore, but the affection is still there, and it still stings when he gets that dejected look on his face.

So he says, “Thank you for today.”

He grumbles in response, and so just to be a pain, Castiel kisses him again.

“I’m only staying at this curb for sixty more seconds, Castiel,” Crowley pulls back from him. “Now piss off.”

“Love you too,” Castiel grins.

“Out, you insufferable twat!” Crowley shoos him. Castiel waves from the curb, and Crowley leans over just long enough to give him the two-finger salute before driving off.

Castiel lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding all day and looks back at the apartment.

Dean is going to be so pissed at him.   

When he finally gets through the front door, he notices first how tidy everything is. Usually if Dean is left to his own devices, things never get picked up. Second, he notices that Dean is on the couch with Emma on his chest. Third, he notices that Emma is asleep and Dean is not.

“Hello,” Castiel greets him.

“Thought you were with Crowley all night,” Dean replies.

“Nice to see you too,” Castiel sighs and sets Charlie’s canvas bag down beside the door. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Which part?” Dean asks. “The part where you took off and boned me out of a day of work, or the part where my kid thinks you’re her dad?”

Castiel groans inwardly and trudges to the couch, sitting on the armrest opposite the one Dean is using for a pillow.

“All of it,” he says. “I’m sorry for all of it, Dean. I truly am.”

Silence falls between them, and so Castiel asks, “Did you have a nice day?”

“We went to the park,” is all Dean says before he presses Emma to his chest and stands. Every instinct Castiel has tells him to run into his room and barricade the door, so Dean can never get inside.

So he never has to see that _look_ on Dean’s face again.

Dean returns before he can act on that impulse, his bedroom door shut before he holds out his hands and whispers, “What the fuck, man?”

“Dean, I didn’t know what to do,” Castiel whispers back.

“So you went and fucked Crowley?”

Apparently they are going to argue entirely in whispers.

“I didn’t fuck Crowley,” Castiel frowns. “And why the hell are you so concerned about the people I fuck?”

“Because I needed you!” harshness invades the whisper. “Cas, I gotta do everything I can to support—”

“That’s fine, Dean,” nods Castiel. “But you don’t have to work three jobs to do it. You’re killing yourself.”

“Better me than her,” Dean shrugs.

“Oh, my god,” Castiel replies at speaking volume, and Dean shushes him.

“Dean,” Castiel continues in a whisper once more, “your child is your number one priority, I understand that, but listen to me: you are no good to her dead. You are no good to me dead. You being dead is the worst thing that could happen to us.”

“Whatever,” Dean folds his arms over his chest. “Maybe then you’ll finally get to be with Limey McFuckface, huh?”

“Why are you making this about me and Crowley?” Castiel shoots back. “I’m really worried about you, Dean. You don’t sleep nearly as much as you should, you hardly get any time with the daughter you’re doing all of this for… You’re not a means to an end.”

Dean takes in a shaky breath and lets it out hard through his nostrils, like a bull ready to chase Castiel through the streets of Pamplona.

And that’s it. That’s the only reaction Castiel gets before Dean turns and stalks right back into his room.

Desperation hollows out Castiel’s chest as he puts his face in his hands.

He should have just stayed with Crowley.

* * *

Friday night comes not a moment too soon. That’s when he gets to pull his security shift with Benny, this big burly dude from Louisiana who sounds like he just crawled out of the bayou. Mostly they pass the time by playing poker, but tonight Dean’s head just isn’t in it.

He hates fighting with Cas, he really does. And even though it’s not like they didn’t fight before Emma came along, but it was little things. Dean is terrible at remembering to shut the windows when the air conditioning comes on; Cas leaves his tea mugs lying around for too long and they start growing mold inside. They’re perfectly aware of one another’s flaws, but before Emma it was easier to just accept them and focus on the aspects of their friendship that made it fun.

“You all right?” asks Benny. In lieu of poker, he checks the security footage on the television screen in front of them.

“Beat to hell, actually,” Dean replies, and then yawns. “Haven’t slept for shit in a couple days.”

“Uh-oh,” is all Benny says. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Dean mutters and stands. He grabs his walkie-talkie off of the desk and heads out to make his rounds. Except it feels like he stood up a little too fast, and he feels the world tilt and teeter below his feet.

“Shit,” he sighs and leans up against the wall. He slips his eyes shut and takes a few steadying breaths. He’s fine, he’s cool. He can do this. He sat through Sam’s middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof, okay, he can _do_ this.

He takes another breath and rights himself. That feels a little better at least.

As Dean walks, the better he starts to feel. He feels lighter than air, actually.

Nope.

Nope, he’s still dizzy.

Dean stumbles over to a bench and plops himself down.

“Hey, Dean,” Benny’s voice crackles over the walkie-talkie. “You okay?”

What comes out of Dean’s mouth isn’t any recognizable language. He just makes some sounds that he thinks might sound like words and rests his forehead on his knees.

There’s a gurgling pit in his stomach, but it also feels as though he could up and yack at any moment.

When he opens his eyes, the edge of his vision is fuzzy.

Black.

He doesn’t register anything after that.

It’s like drifting through life in twilight sleep. He’s vaguely aware of being loaded onto a stretcher, of flashing red lights and a siren, of an EMT strapping a mask over his face and calling in his status to the waiting emergency room.

He goes in and out of consciousness while they hook him up to some sort of robotic monstrosity.

Why the fuck is everyone fussing so much over him is what he can’t figure out. He’s some punk-ass kid from South Dakota with nothing but his car and a couple bucks to his name.

Why would anyone even bother trying to save him?

oo

Dean comes to in a bright white room, and for a moment he thinks he may have actually died. He remembers then that he certainly would not be in heaven if that was the case, and realizes that he is in a hospital room.

A machine beeps in his left ear, increasing in rapidity as Dean realizes, oh, it’s monitoring his heart rate.

“Dean?”

Again to his left. Dean pushes himself up on his elbows, but winces at the sharp pain in his arm.

An IV.

Awesome.

It takes another couple of seconds for everything to fall into place. The voice belongs to Cas.

Cas is sitting in the chair by his bed.

Emma is sitting on Cas, sitting in the chair by his bed.

Castiel’s eyes are rimmed red, bruised dark from exhaustion, brow set in a firm line. Emma doesn’t look any less homicidal.

“Where the fuck am I?” asks Dean.

“You’re in the telemetry ward at Our Lady of Pointless Suffering,” Castiel bites back.

“Nice to see you too, Cas,” Dean lies back down. “What happened?”

“You were at work,” Castiel explains, “You were apparently acting strangely all night, and then you passed out while making your rounds. When you got here, you were severely dehydrated, your vitals were dangerously low, and you were malnourished.”

Cas then stares at him expectantly, and Dean heaves a sigh. “How the fuck to I adjust this shit?”

“Here,” Castiel sets Emma down on Dean’s bed and searches for the remote that controls the bed.

“Da- _dee_.”

Both Castiel and Dean pause at that.

“The fuck did she just say?” asks Dean.

“Da- _dee_ ,” Emma repeats, and crawls up Dean’s torso to grab at his IV line.

Thankfully, Cas nips that one in the bud before it gets ugly.

“On the other side of daddy,” he moves her to where there are no wires to grab.

“Daddy,” Emma says again, and slots herself up against Dean’s side.

“She called me ‘daddy’,” Dean breathes. The monitor starts beeping like crazy, but fuck it, who cares?

His baby knows who he is.

“Wait,” he frowns. “How come you got papa, then?”

Cas, eyes wide, shrugs.

Emma then points, a grin on her face, and exclaims, “Papa!”

Dean frowns.

“Then who am I, baby?”

Emma stuffs her three middle fingers in her mouth (“No, honey, there’s germs everywhere.” “Cas, come _on_.”)

“Em?” Dean asks again. “Who am I?”

“Daddy,” Emma says, grinning only when Dean breaks out in a smile.

“Damn straight, baby,” he feels his eyes well up and he kisses her on the forehead. Cas slumps back into his chair, relieved.

“You find the remote thingy?” asks Dean. He roots around beside the mattress and grabs it.

He turns on the TV first, then accidentally calls the nurse.

“It’s the button with the chair on it, Mr. Winchester.”

“Ah, right,” Dean nods. “Pictorals. All about that.”

“What are ‘pictorals’?” Castiel asks, a smile teasing his lips.

“They’re a whole lot of ‘shut the fuck up, pops’,” Dean replies as his bed folds. Emma, startled, scurries into his lap.

“Pictographs is the word you’re looking for,” Cas stretches his legs out in front of him. “In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” Dean shakes his head and flips channels until he lands on Maury. “Oh, hell yes.”

Cas sighs and stands up so he can reach to turn the TV off manually.

“What the French, toast?” Dean throws up his hands. Emma repeats the rhythm of the words, but bungles over the phonetics.

“Dean, you could have been seriously hurt,” says Cas. “If Benny hadn’t found you, I don’t know how long you would have lain there before someone found you. You ran yourself so hard that your body forced a shutdown. That has to be indicative that something needs to change.”

Dean sighs and looks up at the ceiling.

“Dude, I told you,” he says. “I don’t have the option of not doing what I’m doing.”

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” Cas’ eyebrows go up, and for a split second he almost looks like Gabriel. “I have been telling you since day one that you don’t have to repay me anything.”

“I’m not a mooch, Cas,” Dean frowns.

“No, you’re not,” Cas agrees. “But if I recall correctly, we are family, and families help each other when they need it.”

Dean’s stomach does an uncomfortable somersault.

“I’m not letting you foot the bills for everything,” he says.

“I don’t expect you to,” Cas cocks his head, eyebrows pinched in that discerning manner. “Help out where you can, Dean. A little help is better than the absence of help, which is what I would be getting if it weren’t for Benny.”

Dean shuts his eyes, takes a breath, and tells himself he’s not allowed to cry.

“Please, Dean,” Cas’ voice comes out soft. “You don’t have to scale all the way back, just enough so you can get eight hours of sleep a night and three square meals a day.”

“What the fuck is a square meal?” Dean asks.

“Nutritional,” Cas substitutes, seriousness written all over his face. “I am not doing this again, Dean.”

Dean leans into Emma, “Papa’s bein’ a real square.”

“Dean!”

“Aw, come on,” Dean snuggles Emma closer to him. “Father-daughter bonding.”

Castiel remains silent for a few moments, gaze shifting from Emma to Dean, back and forth until he lands on Dean.

“Do you mind?” he asks. “That she thinks I’m her—you know.”

“Papa?”

Cas nods.

“Well,” Dean shrugs, not sure where to look. “You basically are, aren’t you?”

When Castiel doesn’t respond, doesn’t even move, Dean continues, “Man, you know you’re not a nanny, or a babysitter. You know it, I know it… we both have for a long time. She’s got two dads.”

Dean offers Cas a smile, “She could’a done better, but she could have it a fuck of a lot worse.”

Castiel smiles back, “Yes, that’s true.” He licks his lips and stuffs his hands in his sweater pockets. “Thank you, Dean.”

“For what?”

Cas shrugs, “Sharing your daughter with me, I suppose.”

“Hey, man,” Dean shifts up, “I feel way safer with you riding shotgun.”

He puts up his fist, “Co-parents for life?”

Cas, despite himself, rolls his eyes and bumps Dean’s fist.

“Co-parents for life.”


End file.
